


She Thinks He's Like a Cactus

by viciouswishes



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-01
Updated: 2005-09-01
Packaged: 2017-10-11 16:59:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/114612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viciouswishes/pseuds/viciouswishes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are three survivors in the advent of an apocalypse: Twinkies, roaches, and dead people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Thinks He's Like a Cactus

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remember_nomore](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=remember_nomore).



> Bits snagged from the OED, Angels in America, and "Smashed." Paulina is a lake in Central Oregon.

Sitting on a tattered green blanket, she waits. She's been instructed to stay still and wonders if they all come here to die again. Droplets of blood litter her blue shirt and she remembers some on his.

Her eyes move to the noise beyond the hallway. He said that they were the last people in this dreaded heat. That the others had gone north toward glaciers and roots. (But she still must sit still.) She thinks about the green plants that dotted the shelves of her former life. The one where she was a kind of mother, the one with the woman with the red hair. Her fingers tighten around the fabric.

She expects to hear a leaky faucet, a constant drip of water. That's what she remembers about places like this. But the heat absorbs everything. (The human body is 70% water.) She wishes the clock worked so she could keep track of how long he's gone.

Keep track properly that is. Sometimes he's gone longer than a day, but the rotations of sun and moon no longer function like they once did. At least, she believes that they once had a rhythm; that she worshiped the goddess underneath them.

Breath is her time. (Breathe, hands together, breathe, rise to the sun, breathe, bend over, breathe, down on hands and knees, breathe...) She counts until she loses herself; she counts until she loses track, until the numbers bleed together. Perhaps the numbers grow larger with time.

Her eyes close when she hears another noise. If death comes for her again, she doesn't want to look at it. Doesn't want to know. Doesn't want to feel the cold, clammy touch of another.

"Tara," he whispers. His hand shakes her knee, and his voice is soft.

Tara squints, slow rising eyelids. "Lindsey." Her hand runs through his hair as he sits down at her knees. She smiles as he places a kiss on each of her hands.

"I brought you some food." Lindsey points to the basket on the floor. "Couldn't find anything to drink, but there's potato chips, some canned corn, and, for dessert, Twinkies. I figure that there are three survivors in the advent of an apocalypse: Twinkies, roaches, and dead people."

Taking her hand in his, Tara sinks to the floor next to Lindsey. They're not sure if they even need food anymore, but tradition and memory call for it. There's water in the corn and Tara's thirsty. Lindsey calls it the 'great thirst.' He has many names for things, always spotting and naming like Adam in Biblical myth. Tara thinks that he likes to pretend they're the only ones here.

"Tomorrow I'm going to find a car. I'm going to get us out of here," Lindsey says. His hand runs through her hair and he pulls her in for a kiss. He tastes like peppermint schnapps, the only wet in the entire area.

Tara doesn't mention that he's promised every day since she met him to take her away from here. She still wonders if there's anything beyond here. But every time she ventures outside, her tongue swells at the thickness of the air. Lindsey says that he doesn't mind the dead heat.

Lindsey takes his knife and cuts through the top of the can, just enough for a water-hole. "Drink up," he says as he hands the can to Tara. They both know that within an hour the can would be dry. He nibbles on potato chips as he watches her careful, steady hand guide the can to her mouth.

The liquid glides down her throat and somewhere she recalls milkshakes and movies. ("You know that I will always be there for you, right?") Tara's eyes meet Lindsey's, holding his gaze until the drips stop against her tongue. She sets the can aside, her hand sneaking for a chip.

Lindsey's unbuttoned the top of his cowboy-style shirt. Tara thinks that she used to know the names for the shirts, like her father wore, maybe. She's always amazed at how Lindsey looks comfortable everywhere.

"Remember when I found you, kitten," Lindsey says. Tara thinks that in another life she would've hit him with a large book of feminism for calling her 'kitten.' But here, in the heat, it makes a hazy sort of comfort. And his hand touches her face. "You were all alone, and I was bleeding on your shoes. You asked me for a ride."

"And you wanted to know where I was going," Tara added. She leans against him now, her face next to the blood stains. "I said anywhere, but here."

"Got you out of the dust and rubble, didn't I?" Lindsey brushes a strand of her hair away from her face. She thinks it's grown longer since she's been here. Lindsey's own hair is touching his shoulders.

Tara leans in to kiss Lindsey again. His lips are wet and sprinkled with salt. She thinks he's like a cactus and if she cut him open he'd be full of peppermint schnapps. Her own reservoir.

Lindsey's arms move around Tara's waist. He's lifting her into his lap and slowly up to the bed. At first, she was surprised at just how strong he was. But he died in a battle; so why wouldn't he be?

Tara lies on her back, her hand curling and uncurling around Lindsey's bicep. She moves to kiss him again as his body settles between hers. As his tongue pushes into her mouth, she remembers showers, showers in the morning, showers after sex. The way the water ran down her back like his hands under her shirt. But she doesn't recall being dirty here. Everything's dirty, but them.

"God, you feel good," Lindsey says between kisses. His thumb rolls over her nipple. He smirks at her when she starts to undo his belt buckle. "I can't wait to be inside you."

Inside Tara is a memory she can't unravel. (_To the memory of:_ so as to keep alive the remembrance of; as a memorial to; as a record of.) There's a room and a woman whose name she can't recall, sitting at a table, peeling an orange with a knife and fork. His buckle hits the floor with a thud.

The shiny oyster buttons on Lindsey's shirt pop open with barely a touch. As if her hands were meant to take them apart like playing a scale on a piano. She isn't really sure if she's ever played a piano or what that would entail. Before she can ask him, she giggles as his hand brushes lightly over her stomach.

"Ticklish, are you?" Lindsey asks. His fingers continue to bounce on her stomach. He keeps on smiling at her as he rolls off and sheds his boots, socks, and jeans, belt buckle hitting the floor with a thud. His hands then go for her clothing.

Tara pulls him next to her; she's keeping her clothes for the moment. They protect her from the outside, from the heat. She read once in a survival book that in the desert one should always keep his/her clothing on for protection against the sun. And Lindsey's not wet enough for her yet.

Her hand runs up and down his cock; beads of pre-come collect on the edge of her thumb. Lindsey's strong and firm to her touch, yet open for her to see. He's red and angry in her hand, subject to her will and his need. (When you look at someone, it's just bouncing light.)

Lindsey's body is compact and lean with warrior muscles and determined eyes. He likes to tell her stories of fighting angels and demons and apples &amp; Eve. There's a few that she's sure he loved and lost. She shakes her head. "Not going to let you lose me," she whispers.

Tara tugs her shirt off her head, letting it crumple on the floor. She's thankful for the layer of dust covering the room's only mirror, but Lindsey doesn't mind.

"You're so pretty, kitten," he says. His hand cups her breast, avoiding the weeping red. He knows better; his own chest matching hers in color, in openness. She's worried that her heart will fall to his lap. "Come here." Lindsey puts his hand on hers.

Together, they remove her jeans, but she's still not looking down as she wiggles her hips like a fish gasping for its last breath in the bottom of her dad's boat. Lindsey is her bottle of lake water, crystal clear and bitter cold like Paulina. Without the signs of birds belly-up with mercury poisoning.

Tara smiles as Lindsey pulls her on top of him. The dead have no use for latex and she groans as she guides his cock inside her. She moves as a boat in her sea of vodka, regretting that she never made it to Russia. Or beyond the West Coast. But he jerks under her and she acknowledges his promise to take her everywhere.

"You feel so fucking good. So perfect with your tight pink pussy." Lindsey's words once seemed nasty and foul, something of men who watched too many pornos in shirts commemorating Jeff Gordon's winnings. But Lindsey saved her, keeps her safe, and will take her far, far from the heat. "Like the way I touch you, don't you?"

Closing her eyes, Tara starts to hum. Humming like meditation, counting every tiny thrust Lindsey makes with his hips and every bounce she lifts with her thighs. "Yes." When she opens her eyes, she's looking up at the ceiling and the large cracks. Listening to the sweat-slicked smack of flesh against flesh.

"Where's my kitten?" Lindsey's finger runs down from her bellybutton and between her thighs. "There's my kitten," he says as he brushes over her clit, her hot spot. The part that begs for more and begs him never to stop.

Tara wants to believe that the burning feeling rising through her body is life. Is bringing them both back to the world. That together they can change the world, can save the world. She feels like this is a purpose of some sort. And the feeling - the feeling of epiphany - jolts up her body. She comes as her cunt spasms around him.

Lindsey's eyes are closed with a proud smile on his lips. "Good girl." She continues to rock, to ride on the waves. Her spine pulls her pelvis up and down. His hands grip her, moving her faster. A storm in the upset.

She concentrates on him, on the hardening flesh inside her and splitting the cactus beneath her. {There are thousands of different species of cactus; and he's species Lindsey McDonald.) He grunts and groans and her hand rests on his upper arm for support. She kicks her legs back enough to lean down and kiss him, taste him once again. This is what she needs; this is what they need.

He moans her name when they break for air, and she's startled that he knows it, that he remembers it. Her hips still, until his hand presses her on. Lindsey's force is always just right, never too rough.

Tara's tongue pushes inside him. She has been curious about other penetration she can give him, but doesn't have the nerve to ask him. He's going to take her away, somewhere she believes the woman with red hair lives. Somewhere cold and safe, where she can wander the halls without worry.

Lindsey gasps as he comes, panting against her neck. She lingers over his softening cock. This is the time when the invisible sun hides behind the thicker clouds. When she falls gently onto Lindsey's chest and hides in his warrior arms. Sleep building behind her eyes.

"Tomorrow we'll leave, kitten," he says. "Tomorrow we'll leave."


End file.
